John Trapp on Matthew 24:1

CHAP. XXIV.

Verse 1. Departed from the Temple] NEver to return more to it. In the ninth, tenth and eleventh [non-Latin text not transcribed] Chapters of [illegible: 1 word], God makes divers removes, and still as he goes out, some judgement comes in: and when he was quite gone, then followed the fatall calamity in the utter ruine of the City and Temple. So it was then, and so it was now, according to that, Hos. 9. 12. Woe also to them when I depart from them. So Ier. 6. 8. Be instructed, ô Ierusalem, lest my soul be dis-joynted [illegible: 1 word] thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited. Whatever therefore we do, let us retain Christ with us: lay hold on him, as Magdalen did, Take him by the feet as the Shunamite did the Prophet, as the Shulamite held her Spouse, constrain him to stay with us as the two Disciples going to Emaus, cry Vesper a jam venit, nobiscum Christe maneto: Extingui lucem ne [illegible: 1 word] tuam. To shew him the buildings of the Temple] As thinking by that goodly sight, haply, he might be moved to moderate the severity of that former sentence of leaving their house desolate unto them, chap. 23. 38. True it is that Herod (to get the peoples good will, which yet he could never do) had been at a wonderfull charge in building and beautifying the Temple. Josephus Lib. 15. Antiq. cap. 14. the Jew tells us, that for eight whole years together, he kept ten thousand men aworke about it: and that for magnificence and statelinesse, it exceeded Solomons Temple, if his words exceed not the truth of the matter. This the Disciples fondly thought would work upon our Saviour to reverse his former sentence, as above-said: but his [illegible: 1 word] were not as their thoughts. Animo magno nihil magnum, saith Seneca. The bramble reckoned it a great matter to reign over the trees; not so theJudg. 9. Vine and Olive.